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Mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions from paddy soil under conventional and no-till practices using nitrification inhibitors during the winter wheat-growing season

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Abstract

The net effect of no-till techniques on nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions is inconsistent and poorly quantified in comparison to conventionally tilled farming. This study assesses N2O emissions and yields from paddy fields during the wheat-growing season under conventional and no-till farming, as well as mitigation of N2O evolution using dicyandiamide and chlorinated pyridine (CP) as nitrification inhibitor (NI). Both tillage practices and NIs significantly (P < 0.01) affected cumulative N2O emissions and yields. In comparison to conventional tillage, the cumulative N2O emissions under no-till farming were increased by 8.2–19.3 % and the water-filled pore space was higher on most days. Relative to no-tillage, the conventional tillage averagely increased the wheat yield by 6.0 % and reduced yield-scaled N2O–N emission by 44.5 %. The two NIs averagely increased the wheat yield by 9.7 % and reduced yield-scaled N2O–N emission by 67.7 %. The treatment with CP produced the highest yield with the lowest N2O emissions, thus leading to the lowest yield-scaled N2O–N emission (0.15–0.17 kg N2O–N t−1 grain yield) under both tillage practices.

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Acknowledgments

We greatly thank Professor Paolo Nannipieri and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and critical evaluation on this manuscript. This work was jointly supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talent in Universities (NCET-10–0475), the National Science Foundation of China (41171238 and 40971139), the National Basic Research Program of China (2009CB118603), the Nonprofit Research Foundation for Agriculture (200903003), the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20110097110001), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (KYZ201110), and the PAPD.

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  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Low Carbon Agriculture and GHG Mitigation, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, China

    Yuchun Ma, Liying Sun, Xiaoxu Zhang, Bo Yang, Jinyang Wang & Zhengqin Xiong

  2. State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Bin Yin & Xiaoyuan Yan

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  1. Yuchun Ma
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  2. Liying Sun
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  3. Xiaoxu Zhang
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  4. Bo Yang
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  5. Jinyang Wang
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  6. Bin Yin
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  7. Xiaoyuan Yan
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Correspondence to Zhengqin Xiong.

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Appendix 1

Daily mean air temperature and rainfall during the wheat-growing season in 2011–2012 in Changshu, China (XLS 43 kb)

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Ma, Y., Sun, L., Zhang, X. et al. Mitigation of nitrous oxide emissions from paddy soil under conventional and no-till practices using nitrification inhibitors during the winter wheat-growing season. Biol Fertil Soils 49, 627–635 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-012-0753-7

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